Today’s front-row Friday video is about tenacity to reach your goals. I’m filming today from Paris as I am preparing for my first keynote in France! Yes, this is a bucket list item for me for sure. One of the stories I’m going to tell is about how you have to be tenacious when faced with obstacles along your path to the front-row. There will always be obstacles. Unexpected emergency’s, other priorities, things not going your way, being denied access, just to name a few. Which brings me to today’s example. Cricket Head is a horse trainer. She is retiring this year after a very successful career. But, it wasn’t always easy. Cricket’s dad was a horse breeder and trainer and so was her brother. When she went to her dad announcing that she wanted to be a trainer too, he suggested she marry one, because no woman had a license to train horses. She persevered and learned and worked in the field (literally) to prepare for her application to be licensed. When she did apply, she was denied. Why? Because she was a woman. She negotiated to have the committee give her a year to prove herself. They accepted. One of her horses was named Treve. She brought Treve to auction and only needed $22,000 euros to break even. For some reason, NO ONE bid on Treve.
For comparison, a couple of months earlier a yearling named Chiquita was sold at that auction for $600,000 euros! Cricket trained Treve herself and the magic started to happen. Treve started winning races. In fact she won one of the more prestigious races, the Prix de Diane. The horse that came in second? Chiquita. Then, to top off the story, Treve qualified to race in the largest race in all of Europe, L’Arc de Triomphe. You guessed it, Treve won it! Then, just to silence her critics as a one-hit wonder, Treve returned again the following year and won it again! That had not happened in 38 years. Be tenacious when faced with obstacles or adversity. Don’t take no for an answer. Just maybe you will have a success story like this little horse who no one bid on for $22,000 euros and ended up earning more than $7 million euros because she was trained by one of the best.
Have a happy front-row Friday and I’ll see you in the ‘premier rang!’
Your Head Usher,
Marilyn
